A federal judge dismissed a misconduct complaint filed by the Department of Justice against Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. Boasberg oversaw a case related to the Alien Enemies Act last year.
The complaint, filed by Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office in July 2025, alleged that Boasberg, an Obama appointee, made “improper public comments” about President Donald Trump to Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts and other federal judges “that have undermined the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.” The DOJ claimed that Boasberg made the comments at a semiannual judicial conference the previous March, where he warned that Trump would “disregard rulings of federal courts” and trigger “a constitutional crisis.”
Boasberg previously ruled against Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to carry out his mass deportation plans. Last March, Boasberg imposed restrictions on the federal government from removing anyone under the law. Despite Boasberg’s order, the Department of Homeland Security removed more than 200 noncitizens from the U.S. to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
Boasberg’s efforts to pursue contempt proceedings against administration officials, related to questions about compliance with that order, have been on hold since mid-December.
In his newly released dismissal of the misconduct complaint, Jeffrey Sutton, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, said that the DOJ failed to provide sufficient evidence of Boasberg’s supposedly prejudicial statements and noted that such conversations between judges are normal during this kind of event. Sutton’s decision was issued Dec. 19.
“A key point of the Judicial Conference and the related meetings is to facilitate candid conversations about judicial administration among leaders of the federal judiciary about matters of common concern,” Sutton wrote. “In these settings, a judge’s expression of anxiety about executive-branch compliance with judicial orders, whether rightly feared or not, is not so far afield from customary topics at these meetings.”
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.